Amusement rides that utilize passenger cabins which are capable of movement with multiple degrees of freedom (roll, pitch, yaw, vertical, lateral and longitudinal motion) have recently become popular due to their ability to provide exciting rides in relatively small areas. However, such amusement rides present many difficulties associated with their safe operation and economics. Previous amusement rides that utilized tracked vehicles used loading facilities which incorporated loading platforms located in a designated loading area adjacent to the tracks upon which the vehicle runs. Such a system utilizes direct access of the patron into the moveable vehicle by allowing the patron to step directly into the vehicle when it is brought to rest in the loading area. Thereafter, the operator of the ride manually assures that safety systems, such as seatbelts and other restraints, are engaged prior to departure of the vehicle from the loading platform area. Similarly, non-tracked rides such as ferris wheels and other rotary or oscillating rides have utilized a waiting area and loading zone to which the passenger vehicles are progressively brought, stopped and loaded.
While such access systems have proven useful and practical for a wide variety of relatively simple rides, they are relatively limited in their applicability due to the fact that the vehicle must be brought to a slow and controlled stop next to the boarding platform on which the next load of patrons is waiting. However, the stationary loading platform approach is not readily applicable to non-tracked vehicles that must operate at high speed in close proximity to the platform, especially if such vehicles are capable of movement in a direction lateral to the loading platform.
The adaptation of multiple degree of freedom motion simulators as a basis for amusement rides has presented a variety of problems, among them rapid, economical and safe means of providing access by patrons to the ride. Amusement rides which use cabin vehicles that are maneuvered in multiple degrees of freedom must be enclosed within a structure which prevents access to the operating envelope of the vehicle by patrons or other unauthorized persons in order to prevent the risk of severe injury which would occur should a person be trapped within the operating envelope of the vehicle once the ride has begun. Large cabin vehicles of the type that are utilized in theme parks and other major attractions present enormous risks in that the potential force and velocity of the rides cannot be overcome by any human force and, once set in motion, are not susceptable to immediate cesation of all motion when operating at high speed without injury to the operators, structure, occupants, or some combination thereof.
Furthermore, such moving cabin rides represent a very large investment due to their use of hydraulic and electronic power systems and their extensive use of advanced technology, including computers. Such systems were developed, in part, from simulators used to train pilots and other operators of expensive vehicles, primarily to avoid the risks associated with losing such an expensive vehicle during experimental or training exercises. For that reason, rapid ingress and egress of a large number of passengers was neither necessary nor desirable, since the simulator could only be effectively and economically used by a relatively small number of people over a relatively large period of time, and the simulator was much less expensive to use than the aircraft or other vehicle being simulated. The first uses of such moving simulators as amusement rides incorporated the simple door and access plank developed for the simulators, but the economics for such an installation were not justifiable to major theme parks in light of the relatively limited space available for such systems, the cost of the equipment and physical plant associated with the installation and the probability of client alienation associated with excess wait time to enjoy the attraction. Furthermore, the relatively simple loading systems available for amusement rides could not be adapted to the simulator based systems, since the operating enevelope of the simulator could not be intruded into, and such systems as were available were all deficient in providing high capacity access without interfering with the operating envelope.
For these reasons there remains a need for a rapid, economical, safe and relatively high capacity ingress-egress system for a moving cabin and other high energy, high cost amusement rides that present the above requirements.